To say that having AIDS hasn't
affected my artwork I would be kidding myself. Yet in some real
senses AIDS has not been a direct element in much of my work.
Only a few pieces, mostly painting and mixed media with poetry, such as Mourning/Morning below are directly autobiographic.This itself was initially mostly a defensive reaction. Being publicly "out" about my HIV status was a very different experience in the early days of the epidemic. I have been infected 20 years. People felt entitled to know any and all the intimate sexual details of your life, right down to your favorite positions. If you were as committed to public education as I was, you answered those impertinent questions as calmly and honestly as possible even when you had the sneaking suspicion that the question was more for voyeuristic reasons than education. In the post-Clinton era, it is hard to remember that these kinds of private questions were not asked even of public figures and certainly not anyone else. Since a party could devolve into a impromptu safe sex lecture, my work became a place of refuge where I set the boundaries of the discussion. In retrospect, I can see how the nude as subject matter has always been a way for me to explore my personal issues around privacy and how to retain dignity when feeling naked and exposed.

AIDS has generally affected
my work more indirectly. I originally started working in 3D because
of HIV related changes in my eyes. There was a chance I would
lose my eyesight. (I did not) and I wanted to be able to continue
to make art. In addition because of my illness I have been involved
with the outskirts of art therapy through my work on the book
Be A Friend:
Children with HIV Speak and with at-risk teenagers in the Canvas Project. Making art has always been my home-brewed medicine. Healing is so more than the absence of disease. In a backhanded way years of living with a potentially fatal illness has taught me more about life than about death. How moments count and time is precious.

I think that I learned most
how to cope with HIV from children. Initially the biggest lesson
was how not to get caught up in self-pity. Children have none
and their example can shame you out of your own. HIV is much more
devastating physically for children yet they never feel sorry
for themselves. When the pain or fever lets up, they laugh, they
play and they don't waste precious time. My son's disease cycle
was particularly complex and we more or less lived in a children's
hospital for a year in 1990-1991. It gave me an opportunity to
watch other children closely. I was struck by the difficultly
and confusion children felt because of their parent's and family's
anger and shame about the disease. Often parents would go to extreme
lengths to hide the diagnosis. Remember at this point people with
children who where HIV positive were having their houses burned
down, losing jobs and being thrown out of churches. But it was
very difficult for children to separate themselves mentally from
the virus. They often felt guilty or that there was something
evil or bad about THEM. I vowed that I would be proud of everything
about my son even his disease. Even though my son died I still
feel that way. Over time I have realized the virus isn't a monster
out to "get" me. HIV doesn't know that it is hurting
me. In fact, the virus doesn't actually kill anybody. It only
weakens the bodies defenses. The virus means no harm. I have never
in the over a decade that I've been treated heard anyone speak
of the monstrous CNV virus or any other myriad problems that actually
kill AIDs patients. The virus isn't murdering me, at the worst
its involuntary manslaughter.

I had the wake up call about
my own mortality at a very young age. But all of this might have
made me a different perhaps angrier person but for the special
people in my life. My supportive friends, my caring husband, and
the marvelous doctors at NIH (National Institute of Health) who
treated me and my son. But most important of those special people
was my son, Ezra. Before my son was born, I had read about every
religion on the planet. Yet I could never get over the sneaking
suspicion that death was like TV before cable. The national anthem
and then....static. Just thinking about Ezra makes me feel grateful
and humbled. My son was an old soul. I learned from him rather
than teaching him. I learned about grace through pain. I learned
that gentleness was strength and wisdom. I learned how to love
until your heart breaks. The Buddhist teach that children who
die young often are returning for one last life in order to learn
to cope with physical pain before achieving nirvana. I need to
get enlightened if I hope to see Ezra again. I have a long way
to go.

If your have any questions
about HIV or AIDs, impertinent or otherwise email me. I will do
my level best to answer honestly. Below are some links to sites
on the web where you can get more information about HIV and AIDS.

Links on the web

Pediatric
AIDS Foundation - A foundation supporting research on pediatric
AIDS and how it effects families. All profit from Be A Friend
go to supporting its programs.